Rant

by everybody in the world with a television set.
    He says, “Simple as that.”
    The man says, “Then, when you go to collect his body for his funeral,” and tips whiskey into his mouth, “the airline gives you a special bargain price on your ticket.”
    Fifty bucks, round-trip. He looks at my scotch sitting on the tray table in front of me. Warm. Any ice, gone. And he says, “You going to drink that?”
    I tell him: Go ahead.
    This is how fast your life can turn around.
    How the future you have tomorrow won’t be the same future you had yesterday.
    My dilemma is: Do I ask for his autograph? Slowing my breath, pacing my chest to his, I ask: Is he related to that guy…Rant Casey? “Werewolf Casey”—the worst Patient Zero in the history of disease? The “superspreader” who’s infected half the country? America’s “Kissing Killer”? Rant “Mad Dog” Casey?
    “Buster,” the man says, his monster hand reaching to take my scotch. He says, “My boy’s given name was Buster Landru Casey. Not Rant. Not Buddy. Buster.”
    Already, my eyes are soaking up every puckered scar on his fingers. Every wrinkle and gray hair. My nose, recording his smell of whiskey and cow shit. My elbow, recording the rub of his flannel shirtsleeve. Already, I’ll be bragging about this stranger for the rest of my life. Holding tight to every moment of him, squirreling away his every word and gesture, I say: You’re…
    “Chester,” he says. “Name’s Chester Casey.”
    Sitting right next to me. Chester Casey, the father of Rant Casey: America’s walking, talking Biological Weapon of Mass Destruction. Andy Warhol was wrong. In the future, people won’t be famous for fifteen minutes. No, in the future, everyone will sit next to someone famous for at least fifteen minutes. Typhoid Mary or Ted Bundy or Sharon Tate. History is nothing except monsters or victims. Or witnesses.
    So what do I say? I say: I’m sorry. I say, “Tough break about your kid dying.” Out of sympathy, I shake my head…
    And a few inhales later, Chet Casey shakes his head, and in that gesture I’m not sure who’s really pacing who. Which of us sat which way first. If maybe this shitkicker is studying me. Copying me. Finding my hot buttons and building rapport. Maybe selling me something, this living legend Chet Casey, he winks. Never breathing more than fifteen inhales any minute. He tosses back the scotch. “Any way you look at it,” he says, and elbows me in the ribs, “it’s still a damn sweet deal on an airplane ticket.”
    Chuck Palahniuk ( Author) is the bestselling author of seven novels: Fight Club—which was made into a film by director David Fincher—Survivor, Invisible Monsters, Choke, Lullaby, Diary, and Haunted. He is also the author of the nonfiction profile of Portland, Oregon, Fugitives and Refugees, and the nonfiction collection Stranger Than Fiction. More than 3 million copies of his books have been sold. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.
    ALSO BY CHUCK PALAHNIUK Fight Club
    Survivor
    Invisible Monsters Choke
    Lullaby
    Fugitives and Refugees Diary
    Stranger Than Fiction Haunted